Quincy University held its first open to the public collegiate intersquad since adding the sport this year. The intersquad determined who gets to travel on the team to represent their respective weight classes. 

This means that the individuals who lost will not be wrestling in the first official wrestling meet of the season. Leaving many on the team with a bittersweet moment knowing their teammate will go on to wrestle but they will not.

“I expected intersquad to go really good but obviously there is some conflicts between teammates sometimes. But we are all family so it will be okay in general. For the most part there aren’t gonna be any hard feelings, we are all family, it’s just we’re not preparing to battle each other we are preparing to battle other teams,” Trinity Pendergrass said. 

Pendergrass is in an interesting position compared to her teammates. She is listed on the team’s roster as being the only female that would wrestle in the NCAA 125 pound weight class. Unlike many of her teammates who are in the same weight class and must wrestle to have a starting spot. 

“So right now we have a full men’s roster and we don’t have a full women’s roster yet. But we are on the recruiting trail right now. We want to get at least 35 on the men’s and 20 on the women’s side for next season. We have a home meet for both men and women on December 7 with Morton College coming here,” Jimmy Eggemeyer, one of the head coaches and director of wrestling, said. 

Many of the wrestlers are freshman or upperclassmen transfers. Some transfers came from schools who ended their wrestling programs, leaving them to start fresh at Quincy University. 

“Things went really well tonight! For the intersquad purpose it’s basically trying to get some of these wrestlers actual competition in an actual match. But also just trying to see where they stand over all and for some starting spots. For meeting the expectations, yes, I feel like they all wrestled really well. We have a lot of young talent on the team, we got a lot of learning curves to work with. But overall, everyone here did really well. We got a lot of heavy hitters coming out especially in the middle weight,” Jeff Haley, one of the two head coaches for the wrestling team, said. 

The wrestling team has two head coaches and one assistant coach which will be very helpful in upcoming wrestling tournaments because there can be multiple wrestling matches happening at the same time. 

“Today was great, we had a lot of fun. We got to see things that we need to work on and areas that we have been working hard in as well. As for myself there are a few things I need to adjust to as well and I talked to coach. He told me some areas where I need to get better and whatnot, but I’m excited for the season,” Phillip Sims said. 

Sims won his match but left some students questioning an action taken during his battle for the starting spot. Sims stood up with his opponent on his back and put up a fist. This left many unaware students wondering what the movement meant or symbolized. 

“So that is a stalling call, when the person is not doing a lot, like there is not a lot of motion. If nothing is happening then someone is supposed to get called for stalling and hit with the point. I don’t know, I like to put on a show and make sure everyone is entertained,” Sims said. 

Students who attended remarked throughout the intersquad meet that they would like to come back and see a home meet. Many found the event exciting, a good sign that there may be a fan base already forming for the new sport on campus.